CHAPTER IV.

OUR INDICTMENT.

OUR Indictment covered twenty-eight large folios, and contained
sixteen Counts. Of course we had to pay for a copy of it; for
although a criminal is supposed to enjoy the utmost fair play, and
according to legal theory is entitled to every advantage in his
defence, as a matter of fact, unless he is able to afford the cost
of a copy, he has no right to know the contents of his Indictment
until he stands in the dock to plead to it.

It was evidently drawn up by someone grossly ignorant of the
Bible. The Apocalypse was described as the "Book of Revelations,"
and the Gadarean swine came out as "Gadderean." Probably Sir Henry
Tyler and Sir Hardinge Giffard knew as much of the Scriptures they
strove to imprison us for disputing as the person who drew up our
Indictment. Mr. Cluer caused some amusement in the Court of Queen's
Bench when, in the gravest manner, he drew attention to these
errors. Lord Coleridge as gravely replied that he could not take
judicial cognisance of them. Whereupon Mr. Cluer quietly observed
that he was ready to produce the authorised version of the Bible in
court in a few minutes, as he had a copy in his chambers. This
remark elicited a smile from Lord Coleridge, a broad grin from the
lawyers in Court, and a titter from the crowd. It was perfectly
understood that a gentleman of the long robe might prosecute
anybody for blasphemy against the Bible and its Deity, but the idea
of a barrister having a copy of the "sacred volume" in his chambers
was really too absurd for belief.

The preamble charged us, in the stock language of Indictments
for Blasphemy, as may be seen on reference to Archibold, with
"being wicked and evil-disposed persons, and disregarding the laws
and religion of the realm, and wickedly and profanely devising and
intending to asperse and vilify Almighty God, and to bring the Holy
Scriptures and the Christian Religion into disbelief and contempt."

The first observation I have to make on this wordy jumble is,
that it seems highly presumptuous on the part of weak men to defend
the character of "Almighty God." Surely they might leave him to
protect himself. Omnipotence is able to punish those who
offend it, and Omniscience knows when to punish. Man's
interference is grossly impertinent. When the emperor Tiberius was
asked by an informer to allow proceedings against one who had
"blasphemed the gods," he replied: "No, let the gods defend their
own honor." Christian rulers have not yet reached that level of
justice and common sense.

Next, it was flagrantly unjust to accuse us of aspersing and
vilifying Almighty God at all. The Freethinker had simply
assailed the reputation of the god of the Bible, a tribal deity of
the Jews, subsequently adopted by the Christians, whom James Mill
had described as "the most perfect conception of wickedness which
the human mind can devise." What difference, I ask, is there
between that strong description and the sentence quoted from the
Freethinker in our Indictment, which declared the same being
as "cruel as a Bashi-Bazouk and bloodthirsty as a Bengal tiger"?
The one is an abstract and the other a concrete expression of the
same view; the one is philosophical and the other popular; the one
is a cold statement and the other a burning metaphor. To allow the
one to circulate with impunity, and to punish the other with twelve
months' imprisonment, is to turn a literary difference into a
criminal offence.

Further, as Sir James Stephen has observed, it is absurd to talk
about bringing "the Holy Scriptures and the Christian religion into
disbelief and contempt." One of these words is clearly superfluous.
Considering the extraordinary pretensions of the Bible and
Christianity, it is difficult to see how they could be brought into
contempt more effectually than by bringing them into disbelief.

But greater absurdities remain. Our Indictment averred that we
had published certain Blasphemous Libels "to the great displeasure
of Almighty God, to the scandal of the Christian religion and the
Holy Bible or Scriptures, and against the peace of our Lady the
Queen, her crown and dignity." Let us analyse this legal jargon.

How did our prosecutors learn that we displeased Almighty God?
In what manner did Sir Henry Tyler first become aware of the fact?
Was it, in the ancient fashion, revealed to him in a dream, or did
it come by direct inspiration? What was the exact language of the
aggrieved Deity? Did he give Sir Henry Tyler a power of attorney to
defend his character by instituting a prosecution for libel? If so,
where is the document, and who will prove the signature? And did
the original party to the suit intimate his readiness to be
subpoenaed as a witness at the trial? All these are very important
questions, but there is no likelihood of their ever being answered.

"The scandal of the Christian Religion" is an impertinent joke.
Christianity, as Lord Coleridge remarked, is no longer, as the old
judges used to rule, part and parcel of the law of England. I
argued the matter at considerable length in addressing the jury,
and his lordship supported my contention with all the force of his
high authority. After pointing out that at one time Jews, Roman
Catholics, and Nonconformists of all sorts -- in fact every sect
outside the State Church -- were under heavy disabilities for
religion and regarded as hardly having civil rights, and that
undoubtedly at that time the doctrines of the Established religion
were part and parcel of the law of the land, Lord Coleridge
observed, as I had done, that "Parliament, which is supreme and
binds us all, has enacted statutes which make that view of the law
no longer applicable." I had also pointed out that there might be a
Jew on the jury. His lordship went further, and remarked that there
might be a Jew on the bench. His words were these:

"Now, so far as I know, a Jew might be Lord Chancellor;
most certainly he might be Master of the Rolls. The great and
illustrious lawyer [Sir George Jessel] whose loss the whole
profession is deploring, and in whom his friends know that they
lost a warm friend and a loyal colleague; he, but for the accident
of taking his office before the Judicature Act came into operation,
might have had to go circuit, might have sat in a criminal court to
try such a case as this, might have been called upon, if the law
really be that 'Christianity is part of the law of the land' in the
sense contended for, to lay it down as law to a jury, amongst whom
might have been Jews, -- that it was an offence against the law, as
blasphemy, to deny that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, a thing which
he himself did deny, which Parliament had allowed him to deny, and
which it is just as much part of the law that anyone may deny, as
it is your right and mine, if we believe it, to
assert."

Clearly then, according to the dictum of the Lord Chief Justice,
it is not a crime to publish anything "to the scandal of the
Christian Religion," although it was alleged against us as such in
our Indictment.

The only real point that can be discussed and tested is in the
last clause. I do not refer to the Queen's "crown and dignity,"
which we were accused of endangering; for our offence could not
possibly be construed as a political one, and it is hard to
perceive how the Queen's dignity could be imperilled by the act of
any person except herself. What I refer to is the statement that we
had provoked a disturbance of the peace; a more hypocritical
pretence than which was never advanced. I venture to quote here a
passage from my address to the jury on my third trial before Lord
Coleridge: --

"A word, gentlemen, about breach of the peace. Mr.
Justice Stephen said well, that no temporal punishment should be
inflicted for blasphemy unless it led to a breach of the peace. I
have no objection to that, provided we are indicted for a breach of
the peace. Very little breach of the peace might make a good case
of blasphemy. A breach of the peace in a case like this must not be
constructive; it must be actual. They might have put somebody in
the witness-box who would have said that reading the
Freethinker had impaired his digestion and disturbed his
sleep. They might have even found somebody who said it was thrust
upon him, and that, he was induced to read it, not knowing its
character. Gentlemen, they have not attempted to prove that any
special publicity was given to it outside the circle of the people
who approved it. They have not even shown there was an
advertisement of it in any Christian or religious paper. They have
not even told you that any extravagant display was made of it; and
I undertake to say that you might never have known of it if the
prosecution had not advertised it. How can all this be construed as
a breach of the peace? Our Indictment says we have done all this,
to the great displeasure of Almighty God, and to the danger of our
Lady the Queen, her crown and dignity. You must bear that in mind.
The law-books say again and again that a blasphemous libel is
punished, not because it throws obloquy on the deity -- the
protection of whom would be absurd -- but because it tends to a
breach of the peace. It is preposterous to say such a thing tends
to a breach of the peace. If you want that you must go to the
Salvation Army. They have a perfect right to their ideas -- I have
nothing to say about them; but their policy has led to actual
breaches of the peace; and even in India, where, according to the
law, no prosecution could be started against a paper like the
Freethinker, many are sent to gaol because they will insist
upon processions in the street. We have not caused tumult in the
streets. We have not sent out men with banners and bands in which
each musician plays more or less his own tune. We have not sent out
men who make hideous discord, and commit a common nuisance. Nothing
of the sort is alleged. A paper like this had to be bought and our
utterances had to be sought. We have not done anything against the
peace. I give the Indictment an absolute denial. To talk of danger
to the peace is only a mask to hide the hideous and repulsive
features of intolerance and persecution. They don't want to punish
us because we have assailed religion, but because we have
endangered the peace. Take them at their word, gentlemen. Punish us
if we have endangered the peace, and not if we have assailed
religion; and as you know we have not endangered the peace, you
will of course bring in a verdict of Not Guilty. Gentlemen, I hope
you will by your verdict to-day champion that great law of liberty
which is challenged -- the law of liberty which implies the equal
right of everyman, while he does not trench upon the equal right of
every other man, to print what he pleases for people who choose to
buy and read it, so long as he does not libel men's characters or
incite people to the commission of crime."

Appealing now to a far larger jury in the high court of public
opinion, I ask whether Freethinkers are not one of the most orderly
sections of the community. Why should we resort to violence, or
invoke it, or even countenance it, when our cardinal principle is
the sovereignty of reason, and our hope of progress lies in the
free play of mind on every subject? We are perhaps more profoundly
impressed than others with the idea that all institutions are the
outward expression of inward thoughts and feelings, and that it is
impossible to forestall the advance of public sentiment by the most
cunningly-devised machinery. We are par excellence the party
of order, though not of stagnation. It is a striking and pregnant
fact that Freethought meetings are kept peaceful and orderly
without any protection by the police. At St. James's Hall, London,
the only demonstrations, I believe, for which the services of a
certain number of policemen are not charged for in the bill with
the rent, are those convened by Mr. Bradlaugh and his friends.

Lord Coleridge, ostensibly but not actually following Michaelis,
raised the subtle argument that as people's feelings are very
tender on the subject of religion, and the populace is apt to take
the law into its own hands when there is no legal method of
expressing its anger and indignation, "some sort of blasphemy laws
reasonably enforced may be an advantage even to those who differ
from the popular religion of a country, and who desire to oppose
and to deny it." But this is an inversion of the natural order of
things. What reason is there in imprisoning an innocent man because
some one meditates an assault upon him? Would it not be wiser and
juster to restrain the intending criminal, as is ordinarily done? I
object to being punished because others cannot keep their tempers;
and I say further, that to punish a man, not because he has injured
others, but for his own good, is the worst form of persecution.
During the many years of my public advocacy of Freethought in all
parts of Great Britain, both before and since my imprisonment, I
have never been in a moment's danger of violence and outrage. I
never witnessed any irritation which could not be allayed by a
persuasive word, or any disturbance that could not be quelled by a
witticism. With all deference to Lord Coleridge, whom no one
admires and respects more than I do, I would rather the law left me
to my own resources, and only interfered to protect me when I need
its assistance.

Now for the counts of our Indictment. There is danger in writing
about them, as it is held that the publication of matter found
blasphemous by a jury, except in a legal report for the profession,
is itself blasphemy, and may be punished as such. I am not,
however, likely to be deterred from my purpose by this
consideration. On the other hand, as the incriminated passages were
all carefully selected from many numbers of a journal never
remarkable for its tender treatment of orthodoxy, I do not see any
particular advantage to be derived from their republication. They
are, of course, far more calculated to shock religious
susceptibilities (if these are to be considered) when they are
picked out and ranked together than when they stand amid their
context in their original places. Such a process of selection would
be exceedingly hard on any paper or book handling very advanced
ideas, and very backward ones, in a spirit of great freedom. Nay,
it would prove a severe trial to most works of real value, whose
scope extended beyond the respectabilities. Not to mention Byron's
caustic remarks on the peculiar expurgation of Martial in Don
Juan's edition, it is obvious that the Bible and Shakespeare could
both be proved obscene by this process; and setting aside ancient
literature altogether, half our own classics, before the age of
Wordsworth and Scott, would come under the same condemnation. I
know I am intruding among my betters; but I do not claim equality
with them; I merely ask the same liberal judgment. A man is no more
to be judged by a few casual sentences from his pen, without any
reference to all the rest, than he is to be judged by a few casual
expressions he may let fall in a year's conversation.

Curiously, in all those twenty-eight folios of blasphemy, only
three sentences were from my own pen, and two of them were
extracted from long articles. One was a jocose reference to the
Jewish tribal god, who, as Keunen allows, was carried about,
probably as a stone fetish, in that wooden box known as the "ark of
the covenant." Another occurred in a long review of Jules Soury's
remarkable book on the subject of Jesus Christ's hallucinations and
eccentricities, in which he endeavors to show that the Prophet of
Nazareth passed through certain recognised stages of brain disease.
Referring to the close of his career, I wrote that, "When Jesus
made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem he was plainly crazed."
That one sentence was picked out from a long review, running
through three numbers of the Freethinker, and filling six
columns of print. The third sentence was a satirical comment on the
sensational and blasphemous title of Dr. Parker's book on "The
Inner Life of Christ." I asked, "How did he contrive to get inside
his maker?" There was a fourth sentence I wrote for the
Freethinker, but as it was a verbatim report of some
Bedlamite observations of a Salvationist at Halifax, published, as
I said, "to show what is being done and said in the name of
Christianity," I decline to be held responsible for it. Let General
Booth be answerable for the blasphemies of his own followers.

All the other passages in the Indictment were from the pens of
contributors, over whom, as they signed their articles, I never
held a tight rein. They were mostly amplifications of the sentence
I have already quoted about the cruel character of the Bible God. I
did not, however, dwell on this fact in my address to the jury. I
took the full responsibility, and fought my contributors' battle as
well my own. I bore their iniquities, the chastisement of their
peace was upon me, and by my stripes they were healed.

Four of the Comic Bible Sketches were included in the
Indictment. They appeared in the Freethinker on the
following dates: -- January 29, April 23, May 28, and June 11
(1882). Readers who care to see what they were like can refer to
the file in the British Museum. Those illustrations have not been
declared blasphemous, for when the Indictment I have been
explaining was tried before Lord Coleridge, the jury, after several
hours' deliberation, could not agree to a verdict of Guilty.

The Indictment on which I was found guilty, and sentenced to
twelve months' imprisonment, was a later one. It was based on the
Christmas Number, 1882, to which I previously referred. Let me now
give a brief history of my second prosecution.